Aphasia Publications

Better Conversations

Tips, ideas and inspiration to help relatives and friends have better conversations

This Ideas Guide gives relatives and friends ideas and inspirations to help people living with aphasia have better conversations. Designed by our family support worker Gwen Knight, with the advice of people with aphasia and relatives at Connect, “Better Conversations” gives hints and tips to make conversation easier and suggestions for tackling the barriers to conversation.

Sample pages: Download (366KB)

Why I like this book

This is an excellent book, full of common sense, compassion and encouragement.  It is based on real experiences and while it promotes a far better understanding of people with aphasia it is refreshingly non-judgemental of those struggling to cope with it on a day to day basis.

After four years of learning how to live with my husband's aphasia, I learned so much.  This is a very revealing book and opened my eyes to the extent that I had simply accepted that he would not take part in group conversations and that he would be dependent on me to answer questions from outsiders for him.  He read the book as well and expressed his own feelings about being left out of conversations although he had accepted it as part of his disability.  We had never talked about this before and agreed that we should between us try to remedy it.

So many well tried and useful strategies are described but at the same time it points out that every person suffering from aphasia is different and no one strategy will suit all.  It is so much a matter of mutual discovery between the person with aphasia and his or her family and friends to find which of these strategies will help the most.  Above all it promotes the need for patience.  My husband's response to this was that those he enjoys talking to most are not those who will try in a hurry to guess what he is trying to say but those who will just wait patiently for him to say it himself.  The elderly residents in the small care home he goes to for day care are the best, he says, because they understand his plight and have all the time in the world!

I particularly liked the suggestion of creating personal portfolios and feel that not only people with aphasia but all residents in care homes should be given the opportunity and help to create one so that an immediate identity can be provided and a point of entry for developing conversation.

I found this book so helpful and encouraging and have been given new hope that there are very manageable strategies to improve communication between us.

By Jane Paterson, carer

"Very easy to read....the quick guide to 'ideas for conversation' is particularly helpful. The book explained many things". Jennie McHattie, daughter of a person with stroke and aphasia.

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